In this paper, we show that the sentence patterns expressing simile such as “X xiang 像 Y yiyang 一樣 (nayang 那樣, side 似的) ” in Modern Chinese and “X ru 如Y yiban 一般 (xiangsi 相似) ” in Early Mandarin Chinese have their Middle Chinese equivalents, which can be identified as “X ru 如 Y yizhong 一種,” “X ru 如 Y xiangsi 相似,” or “X ru 如 Y wuyi 無異.” Indian people like to speak in similitudes, so sentences expressing simile are very common in Chinese Buddhist sutras. This is why there is a great deal of examples of these forms in Chinese Buddhist sutras. Buddhist sutras were brought to China around the Middle Chinese period. Therefore, by examining the rich Buddhist texts we can observe the process of the development of sentences expressing simile at the time well. In this paper, we propose that the sentence patterns expressing simile in Middle Chinese were mainly derived from the contraction of compound sentences and came into being by the analog of the construction of “X yu 與 Y yizhong 一種 (wuyi 無異, xiangsi 相似)” which expresses likeness or similarity between X and Y. The reason why “wuyi 無異,” “xiangsi 相似,” and “yizhong 一種” could replace the “然” in “X ru 如 Y ran 然” in Old Chinese is because of the tendency for bi-syllablization of lexicons at the time.
